I need to remember this very clearly.
You are not for me.
You never really were,
much as I tried.
You are right. You are a man who doesn’t fit in.
I have to stop breaking my own heart over you.
I have to stop thinking that there is anything there.
You have built a very nice life for yourself.
I need to stop wishing that I could be part of it.
620p 18th july 2020
do you ever think of me unbidden?
do i ever cross your mind? i wonder.
does my voice pollute your day as yours does mine?
does my face interrupt your thoughts?
i know better than to ask
i don’t want to know, i think.
i finally felt safe, home.
i broke my own heart, leaving you.
i can’t stand to talk to you anymore
the pity in your voice is palpable
i have no idea if it’s real or not
only that it feels real.
desperate for comfort.
so when I think for a second that i want to hear your voice
when i am craving the security I once felt
i do better to remember
that it doesn’t belong to me.
J came over last night. I don’t think I can see him anymore.
It was so good. Right up to the point where he told me about all the amazing things he’s seen, the art, the museums.
With the girlfriend who doesn’t know.
I had actually forgotten just how good he is. I made the mistake of saying that, too. That I had forgotten.
I really don’t think I can see him anymore. It’s just way too upsetting. And now he’s gone and I don’t know when I’m going to see him again. I asked him, right before he left, when will I see you again? “I don’t know.”
He’s never going to tell her. And why should he? He’s content with the way things are. He has two other partners who are willing to be with him and not worry about being a secret.
I cried. I told him that I wasn’t going to say that I was sorry. That I wasn’t going to apologize. That I wasn’t going to apologize for saying the things that I said. I will never not be truthful and it hurts.
I told him that I can’t give him any of the things that she gives him. I can’t give him any of those things. The museums, the trips, the fancy dinners. The introductions to people who are so special.
He said, you give me enough, more than enough. But obviously it isn’t. I wish I didn’t care. I told him that, too.
The tldr version is: I should have said no to him coming over.
Because now I feel gutted. I really don’t like feeling this way. Especially since it could have been avoided.
I asked him specifically to not talk about her because he cannot talk about me in front of her. So no, he didn’t say her name. But boy motherfucking howdy did he tell me all the wonderful things they did together.
Why would he do that, you ask?
He was excited to tell me about all of the art. And I was excited about all of the art. Until he told me where it was and why he was there.
And that’s when I started to cry.
I think he has mostly good intentions. I don’t think he sets out to hurt me. But he is an old dog and apparently is unable to learn a new trick. To not kiss and tell.
I asked him if she knew what she had with him. If she understood just exactly how lucky she was with him. No upside to that conversation and I already knew the answer because I knew how lucky I felt, had felt, when we were together.
She does know. She loves him very much.
And because he is charming and so very talented, people remember why they don’t say no to him. I’m not going to do it anymore.
I didn’t sign up for this, being a secret with him. I said that last night, too.
He said, “I know.”
I know. Not bloody helpful.
intellectually i think i can wrap my head around it but my heart
my heart feels left.
i know he’s not leaving me
i know he’ll be back
but i do not know this protocol
can i not even communicate?
(not anywhere near, no)
i don’t know that i can do this
(yet i am,)
communication is so much a part of us
of who we are
and how can i just shut that off?
(i can’t. it appears he can.)
i know that my illness is tempering this.
amplifying this.
(yet without communication,
without the comfort that i had not yet reached in our relationship,
there is no solid ground on which my shaky legs can stand)
(i cannot ask)(yet i have asked and asked my friends and they don’t know either.
there is no way to know)
(and i see that i used “us”
i see that i used “we”.
i don’t feel that comfort now, those words are lies.)
my brain lies to me.
hates me, often.
less so lately, but still.
breathe in, and out.
get some sunshine on my face.
(harder still, now)
fix my makeup.
(again)
go to work.
(go to work)
okay so you know when i wrote to you and said,
“now that I’m on the other side of your being away,
I mean, you’ve been gone longer than what’s left,
it’s feeling easier.
I’m excited for your return, but not in a desperate way any more.
It doesn’t feel so empty.
Or at least, not right now. Hope is a good thing💜💜”
remember?
and then the next day
and the day after, now
nothing.
and now it feels desperate again.
I have none of the answers, I’m just guessing at them
i don’t even know what the questions are anymore.
It is the silence that I cannot bear.
I just had a date with someone I met at a party last week.
A sex party.
That one of my lovers brought me to as his hotwife. To share.
I had sex with him there.
Twice.
In front of my lover.
With my lover.
He looks like my dead husband, I discovered
as I saw him in natural light for the first time.
I stopped still, eyes wide as I took in the similarities
the differences.
Enough differences that my shock couldn’t have been very apparent.
The chemistry though, oh! So familiar
So smooth.
And young, so much younger
a tenderness, surprising and genuine.
I took him into me, feeling his sameness
not wanting to and desperately needing to
knowing this was a last chance
that I would have to be honest and confess.
So I did. And I did. And it was so pure, so true.
Cleansing.
I feel,
lighter.
I have some interesting feelings about this.
Complex, simple.
Untangled.
Today I know how much I am loved. I have no doubt. I will never ever not know. I know what it feels like to be loved, and seen, and heard. I know what it feels like to be understood.
My evolution is ongoing. The path I started down two years ago is ever-twisting, ever changing. Forward, ever forward.
I’d brought this little bit of printing I’d done to hang up in Gary’s hospital room. To remind him that he is loved. I brought it home, taped it to the shelf on his side of the bedroom. To remind me.
things feel slowed down
are
slowed down.
time there’s time
it seems a surfeit
of time.
time to reflect
to think about
think about how slowing down the
footage helps me to walk through
possible timelines. outcomes.
collateral damage.
consequences.
it still feels alien, but less so.
i’m still surprised by it, but less so.
i encourage it, welcome it.
more so.
all of this slowing down has
made ending things easier
and falling headlong into others
easier still
surprising me with the ease of which
i have fallen in love with you.
The difference two years makes.
The girl on the right has no idea that a few hours later, she’s going to watch her husband get his life saved by his defibrillator/pacemaker right in their living room. She has no idea that the trip to the emergency room that night will be the last time she takes her husband there.
That it is the last week on this planet for her husband.
The girl in the middle, a year out from that night, operating on sheer mania and lack of sleep. Fucking up everything, it seems, though people are quick to tell her, “no, no.”
The girl on the left, today. I honestly have no idea how I’m even breathing but for the unending care and tenderness of some truly spectacular humans. Still fucking everything up that isn’t life-or-death and refusing to give a single shit about it any more. Loving deeply and intensely with no regard for those who fly too close to my flame and get burned. Indulging in ink and sex and cannabis and embracing everything good. Dismissing anything less-than.
I no longer settle. I no longer feel less-than.
I miss you more, Gary. I miss you so goddamn much.
I have so much to tell you.
there are so many things i’ve wanted to tell you
so much i’ve discovered
about the world
about myself
music, tv, life, art.
humans. people.
people i think you would like, approve of
people i want to tell you about, share
humans i have told about you
the good ones, they respond with warmth
with love. tenderness and care.
anyone else is dismissed, flicked away
deleted.
no time for unadulterated bullshit.
today is the day before the day that
it began for the last time.
the day before the day that was your last in this house
on this couch.
it is as clear as it was seven hundred thirty days ago.
“…Now I miss you more than I can take
To A Poet, First Aid Kit
And I will surely break
And every morning that I wake
god, it’s the same
There’s nothing more to it
I just get through it
It always takes me by surprise
how dark it gets this time of year
and how apparent it all becomes
that you’re not close, not even near
no matter how many times I tell myself
I have to be sincere
I have a hard time standing up
and facing those fears…”
The Salty Widow 